In looking at the bestiary section of ToA, I've noticed that all enemies have a damage and soak value assigned to them. This makes sense when dealing with an enemy with natural weapons, such as a giant spider or boar, but is more confusing when dealing with beastment, or orcs, or chaos warriors.

Is any equipment an enemy is wielding or wearing purely descriptive? The reason I ask is because of those damage and soak values already assigned to them. Ungor and gor warriors, for instance, have a damage rating of 4. One could posit that that is their damage using nothing but bare hands, but bare hands do more damage than that in the equipment section of the main rulebook. So let's say an ungor or gor is wielding a longsword - does the longsword damage value replace their old one? Add to it? Is it ignored? And I notice that there is no critical rating given for enemies either. Do they get a critical rating from weapons?

Chaos warriors have a very intimidating picture, quoted as being "heavily armoured titans," and yet their soak value is equal to chainmail.

Worse yet, what if the players want to loot the enemy bodies of any equipment they were using. Could a mage with 2 strength conceivably do more damage with a longsword than if it was being wielded by a gor with a strength of 5? (Which he would, seeings as a longsword's base damage is 5, and a gor does 4)

Any help with this?

The damage value is added to strength. So a Gor who gets a hit for base damage would do 8-9 (don't have my book), but Strength and the number in parenthesis total.

There is a long thread somewhere on monster Crit Ratings... I either didn't read it all or don't recall the result, but I think monsters don't get crits on eagles unless they are part of the action. They still crit on Comets. Running the demo I didn't seem to have any problem getting crits. The Gor critt'ed the Trollslayer, and the Wargor critted him 4 more times on a massive roll.

IME, warhammer has never been a game about looting equipment from fallen enemies. I assume you have a handweapon at character creation... why do you want the one from the dead goblin? Same with all other gear.

I see. Thanks for those answers, they are very helpful.

As for looting, I assume my players will want to strip the bodies to sell the weapons or items or whatever. Regardless, even if they don't, I'm still confused as to the varying damage as far as weapons go.

By that I mean, does it not matter what weapon a gor is using? What weapons are beastmen, orcs, and chaos warriors assumed to be using, why does it differ from the weapon damage listed in the rulebook, and does the damage change if they use a different weapon?

on the left side of the bestiary is a discription of the monster. That wapon the the monster has is assumed to be the one in the discription, if you were to give them a differet weapon you would replace the damage not add to it.

Example: In the discriptoon for the Orc it says something along the following

".... Wielding crudly shaped weapons battered together from what ever they find...."

That would mean that the orc is equipped with a crude weapon, that is what the damage indicates.

But if i wanted the orc to have a great weapon i would get rid of the damage rating currently listed and replace it with the amont of damege the great weapon deals (6 or 7 i think).